Vermont Green FC Announce Return of The Maple Cup

As sweet as the sugar in the maple trees that are abundant in New England and Eastern Canada, the USL2’s Vermont Green FC announced Thursday the return of the Maple Cup for 2025. Although the full USL2 season schedule has yet to be released, the club will be kicking off their summer campaign with this Cup game on Saturday, May 24th at 2:00pm at the University of Vermont’s Virtue Field.

The Maple Cup, a single-match cup contest, was launched officially in 2024 as a friendly meeting between the Burlington, Vermont-based side and the reigning Ligue1 Québec champions. Based in the shared community and culture of the region alongside their treasured export of maple syrup – with Québec and Vermont being the largest exporters of the maple products in the world – the 2024 edition was a smashing success that attracted over 2,500 spectators to Virtue Field.

The inaugural contest was won by the hosts in convincing fashion as they brought down the 2023 L1Q champs, CS Saint-Laurent, in a 5-nil thrashing. For 2025 however, Saint-Laurent has been replaced by FC Laval after they took their provincial league by storm in 2024 with a 12W-3D-5L record and 40GF.

Speaking via press release Thursday, Vermont Green Co-Founder, Patrick Infurna, spoke to the importance and value held by the cup match. “Now more than ever, we’re eager to celebrate our friendship with our northern [neighbours] through the game of soccer, upholding the spirit of competition and collaboration that is so important to our club’s values,” said Infurna.

This wont be FC Laval’s first adventure to the Green Mountain State, either. Back in June 2024, FCL’s women’s side travelled south on to take part in the first-ever women’s match in VGFC history. In what was truly a celebration of women’s sports, FC Laval played valiantly against the fledgling roster, but fell to Vermont in the end on penalties.

With his return to Virtue Field impending, FC Laval’s Sporting Director Amro Radwan spoke to the excitement that surrounds this meeting. “We’re very excited to take part in this year’s Maple Cup. Our club visited Vermont Green with our women’s team last summer and it was an incredible experience,” said the Gaffer.

“We are looking forward to competing against this talented men’s team and to hopefully put on a great show for those wonderful Vermont Green fans!”

Although only announced as an official program in 2024, the Maple Cup has existed in one form or another since 2023. There, the Vermonters hosted then-PLSQ Champions CS Mont-Royal Outremont in the club’s first-ever international friendly, with the Green claiming the W with a 3-nil victory.

Tickets for the 2025 iteration of the Maple Cup are available now for fans to purchase here. Tickets for the full USL League Two season and other matches will be available in late February.